Many industries have a need to mark, tag, or identify products that allows for the tracking and tracing of products through the supply chain. One of the primary purposes for such track and trace systems is the combating of illicit trade such as counterfeiting and black market sales.
Anti-counterfeiting measures (ACMs) can be regarded as three different types: Type I (Overt), Type II (Covert) and Type III (Forensic). Type I ACMs are features incorporated into an article that are readily identified and observable to the naked eye. Examples include watermarks, color shifting inks, colored fibers, bands, or strips incorporated into the article, and holograms. Type II ACMs are features that are incorporated into the article that require some form of instrument to identify the feature in the field. The instruments required are generally those that are readily available and transportable. Some examples include the incorporation of very small text (requiring the use of a magnifying glass), UV responsive inks or threads (requiring illumination with a UV light), and barcodes or RFID tags (requiring a specialized reader). Type III ACMs are hidden attributes that require specialized laboratory equipment to identify. Some Type III examples include nano-text, micro-taggants, DNA inks, and chemical additives.
As stated above, there are many widely-used packaging and labelling taggants and anti-counterfeiting measures (ACMs) in many industries, but these more overt solutions are often susceptible to countermeasures such as destruction, modification, duplication, repackaging, or relabeling. Altering the physical features of the raw materials of a product can provide a more covert solution that is much more difficult to evade. These taggants may be used to track an acetate tow band through the supply chain. The taggants may change the physical properties of some fibers, yarn fiber bands, and/or derivative articles in a manner that is difficult to copy or alter but is detectable using image analysis and/or other mechanical methods.
The disclosed exemplary embodiments can be used, for example, to combat the continuing and growing illicit-trade problem of tobacco products, particularly cigarettes. It has been estimated that 10-12% of all cigarette sales are illicit, either counterfeit copies or sales that avoid paying excise taxes on the cigarettes (Tobacco International, “Tackling Illicit Trade, Pt. I,” December 2013). To combat this illicit trade requires a global effort consisting of manufacturers, distributors, regulators, and customs/law enforcement, as well as retailers who sell the cigarettes to consumers. There is a need to be able to track and ultimately trace components used in the construction of a cigarette. For example, the ability to track part of the supply chain path of acetate tow contained in the filter of a black-market cigarette may give helpful information on the source of these illicit cigarettes.
Identification tags can be incorporated into the acetate tow band and can denote, for example, manufacturer, manufacture site, customer, and ship-to location among other supply chain information that might be useful for the track and trace of the acetate tow bands, filter rods, and/or cigarette filters.
Manufacturers of acetate tow typically assign a bale identifier (e.g., number) to each bale of acetate tow produced. Upon assignment, the bale number is associated with supply chain components such as manufacturer, manufacturing site, manufacturing line, production run, and production date. As the bale of acetate tow moves through the supply chain, additional supply chain components such as, for example, customer and ship-to location can be associated with the bale number. In other words, acetate tow manufacturers have systems in place to track and trace some of the supply chain components for bales of acetate tow. Currently, however, an equivalent of a bale number is not encoded in the acetate tow band itself. Therefore, once the label is removed from a bale of acetate tow or the acetate tow band is converted into a filter rod or cigarette filter, the supply chain information is lost.
There is a need for a traceable acetate tow band that is readily manufactured, does not impact the performance of a cigarette filter, and is detectable, not only in an acetate tow band, but also in a single or a set of cigarettes/cigarette filters. There is a need for a traceable acetate tow band that is readily accepted by cigarette manufacturers and consumers, such as an acetate tow that does not require adding chemicals which may impact sensory perception. There is a need for a traceable acetate tow band that does not impact the pressure drop and yield of a cigarette filter. There is a need for a traceable acetate tow band that maintains its traceability when bloomed, plasticized, formed into a filter, and throughout the product cycle of the filter being incorporated into a cigarette and the cigarette reaching the consumer.
There is a need for traceable acetate tow that contains supply chain information including a manufacturer, the customer, or the ship-to location such that the information can be decoded from a single or a set of cigarettes. There is a further need for traceable acetate tow with supply chain information at the level of the acetate tow bale in order to implement a traceable acetate tow system with minimal supply chain costs and complexities.